Mexico's Vicente Fox backs California measure to legalize pot

MEXICO CITY — Sounds like former President Vicente Fox wishes he could vote in California.

Twice on Wednesday, Fox took to the airwaves to encourage Californians Nov. 2 to approve Proposition 19, the ballot initiative to legalize the commercial cultivation and sale of marijuana.

“How great it would be for California to set this example. May God let it pass,” Fox told the W radio network in Mexico. “The other U.S. states will have to follow step.”

If California legalizes marijuana, it may help Mexican peasant farmers, and boost Mexico's exports, he added.

Such a move would be “a step toward saying to the peasant, ‘You can grow marijuana legally and export it,' ” Fox said.

Fox, who preceded President Felipe Calderon (both of the center-right National Action Party), had nothing nice to say about Calderon’s all-out war on drug cartels.

Fox, who is at a conference in Quito, Ecuador, said on Ecuador’s TeleAmazonas that under Calderon, “We have taken the least productive route, which is fighting violence with violence. Violence never resolves violence.”